India, Sept. 27 -- Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has once again defended the country's "hybrid" model of governance in which the army and civilian leadership run the country by "consensus".

He said this in an interview with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan. Asif tried downplaying the role of the much-documented role of the military in Pakistan's governance, though the country has seen multiple coups, martial law administrators and army chiefs becoming presidents. He, in turn, termed US democracy as one being run by the "deep state".

Mehdi Hasan, on his platform Zeteo, questioned Khawaja Asif on the power-sharing model in Pakistan, arguing that the army has more authority. "Asim Munir is a more powerful person than you ar...